Discovering our "We": Marginalization as Connection between International STEM Faculty and their Black and Brown Doctoral Mentees

Lisa Merriweather; Cathy Howell; Edith Gnanadass

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Conference: 2023 Collaborative Network for Computing and Engineering Diversity (CoNECD)
Location: New Orleans , Louisiana
Publication Date: February 26, 2023
Start Date: February 26, 2023
End Date: February 28, 2023
Conference Session: Session 3 - Track 2: Discovering our "We": Marginalization as Connection between International STEM Faculty and their Black and Brown Doctoral Mentees
Tagged Topics: Diversity and CoNECD Paper Sessions
Page Count: 19
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--44789
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/44789
Download Count: 69

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Paper Authors

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Lisa Merriweather University of North Carolina at Charlotte

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Lisa R. Merriweather is a professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She received her PhD in Adult Education with a graduate certificate in Qualitative Inquiry from the University of Georgia in 2004. Her research focuses on issues of equity and social justice within adult education, informal education, and doctoral education. She explores the critical philosophy and sociology of race and anti-Black racism and employs Africana Philosophy, Critical Race Theory, and qualitative and historical methodology to investigate topics found at the nexus of race and adult education.

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Cathy Howell University of North Carolina at Charlotte

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Dr. Cathy D. Howell is a Clinical Assistant Professor and Graduate Program Director at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She received a Bachelor of Science degree in Community Health and Master’s degree in Health Education at East Carolina University. Dr. Howell completed her doctoral degree in Educational Leadership at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Dr. Howell is a qualitative researcher with a multidisciplinary perspective focused on doctoral degree completion and persistence. She addresses issues of inequity, substantive mentorship, barriers and facilitators related to access in educational opportunities for Black women. Her work seeks to critically examine issues of diversity and inclusion as well as the structural inequities that impede access. She also explores research on health disparities related to mental health and chronic illness as linked to higher education obtainment for migrant and marginalized communities of color.

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Edith Gnanadass University of Memphis

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Edith Gnanadass has a Ph.D. in Lifelong Learning and Adult Education with a minor in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from The Pennsylvania State University. Her research interests are at the intersection of race and learning in adult education, DesiCrit (theorizing the racialized experiences of South Asian Americans using Critical Race Theory), Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) as a framework to analyze learning, and qualitative research. She is currently working on the following research projects: Environmental racism, Racialized experience of South Asian Americans, and Mothering during the pandemic. Her selected publications include “Learning to teach about race: The racialized experience of a South Asian American feminist educator” in Adult Learning, “New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education” in New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, and a chapter entitled “Gender still matters in distance education” in the Handbook of Distance of Education. She is the co-editor of Adult Education Quarterly and guest editor of the upcoming Being Black in the U.S. themed issue of Dialogues in Social Justice: An Adult Education Journal.

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Abstract

Title: Discovering our "We": Marginalization as Connection between International STEM Faculty and their Black and Brown Doctoral Mentees Keywords: Graduate, Faculty, Race & Ethnicity International faculty have a strong presence in STEM university educational programming. They represent the second largest demographic, after White faculty, among STEM faculty in US universities, the majority of which are from Asian countries such as China, South Korea, and India, surpassing by large margins racially minoritized domestic faculty including Black Americans, Latine, Native Americans, Native Pacific Islanders, and Native Alaskans (NSF, 2022). These demographics mirror that of STEM doctoral students with White students occupying the largest share, followed by Asian students (international and domestic). Because of this, the National Science Foundation determined that Black Americans, Latine, Native Americans, Native Pacific Islanders, and Native Alaskans were underrepresented in STEM education and occupations. It should come as no surprise that the majority of these racially minoritized students engage in cross-cultural mentoring. While much attention has been devoted to cross-cultural mentoring with White faculty, less has been paid to cross-cultural mentoring with international faculty. International faculty, especially Asian, often occupy a peculiar space as they are often viewed through the model minority lens while also being cast as sufficiently different based on white hegemonic norms (Author, 2021). They are subjected to acceptance for their presumed STEM gifts and talents on one hand, while on the other hand being subjected to marginalization emanating from their home language, accents, and culture (Herget, 2016). International faculty may face isolation and bias in ways similar to their racially minoritized students. Literature is relatively silent on international faculty's doctoral mentoring perceptions and if shared experiences of marginalization are leveraged to enhance the quality of cross-cultural doctoral mentorships between international faculty and Black and Brown students and This paper explores the perceptions of mentoring of international STEM doctoral faculty at three US universities in the southeast. Data were extracted from a larger multiple embedded qualitative case study (Yin, 2018) utilizing interviews with 18 international faculty from three US institutions in the southeast and a survey. Constant comparative inductive analysis was employed to develop findings. The findings suggest that international faculty often share cultural attitudes not much different than their White faculty counterparts, attitudes that reflect anti-Black racism (Gordon, 1995; Dumas & ross, 2016). The findings also reveal an assumption of science neutrality, lacking criticality in understanding science from broader epistemological foundations. Finally, the findings indicate that pragmatic concerns are prioritized over sociocultural and sociopolitical ones that may impact US racially minoritized doctoral students, resulting in international faculty failing to appreciate how their experiences of marginalization can result in empathic connections to their marginalized students. The implications implore STEM education to reimagine STEM doctoral education and mentoring as "holistic and embedded in and accountable to cultural imperatives" (Author, 2022). International faculty should become more aware of ways in which implicit bias fueled by anti-Black racism negatively impacts their Black and Brown doctoral mentees. STEM faculty development education should consider ways to assist international faculty with better connecting with racially minoritized and marginalized students to improve the cross-cultural doctoral mentoring experience.

Citation
Format

Merriweather, L., & Howell, C., & Gnanadass, E. (2023, February), Discovering our "We": Marginalization as Connection between International STEM Faculty and their Black and Brown Doctoral Mentees Paper presented at 2023 Collaborative Network for Computing and Engineering Diversity (CoNECD), New Orleans , Louisiana. 10.18260/1-2--44789

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - Title: Discovering our &quot;We&quot;: Marginalization as Connection between International STEM Faculty and their Black and Brown Doctoral Mentees
Keywords: Graduate, Faculty, Race &amp;amp; Ethnicity
 
International faculty have a strong presence in STEM university educational programming. They represent the second largest demographic, after White faculty, among STEM faculty in US universities, the majority of which are from Asian countries such as China, South Korea, and India, surpassing by large margins racially minoritized domestic faculty including Black Americans, Latine, Native Americans, Native Pacific Islanders, and Native Alaskans (NSF, 2022). These demographics mirror that of STEM doctoral students with White students occupying the largest share, followed by Asian students (international and domestic). Because of this, the National Science Foundation determined that Black Americans, Latine, Native Americans, Native Pacific Islanders, and Native Alaskans were underrepresented in STEM education and occupations. It should come as no surprise that the majority of these racially minoritized students engage in cross-cultural mentoring. While much attention has been devoted to cross-cultural mentoring with White faculty, less has been paid to cross-cultural mentoring with international faculty.
International faculty, especially Asian, often occupy a peculiar space as they are often viewed through the model minority lens while also being cast as sufficiently different based on white hegemonic norms (Author, 2021). They are subjected to acceptance for their presumed STEM gifts and talents on one hand, while on the other hand being subjected to marginalization emanating from their home language, accents, and culture (Herget, 2016). International faculty may face isolation and bias in ways similar to their racially minoritized students. Literature is relatively silent on international faculty&#39;s doctoral mentoring perceptions and if shared experiences of marginalization are leveraged to enhance the quality of cross-cultural doctoral mentorships between international faculty and Black and Brown students and 
This paper explores the perceptions of mentoring of international STEM doctoral faculty at three US universities in the southeast. Data were extracted from a larger multiple embedded qualitative case study (Yin, 2018) utilizing interviews with 18 international faculty from three US institutions in the southeast and a survey. Constant comparative inductive analysis was employed to develop findings. The findings suggest that international faculty often share cultural attitudes not much different than their White faculty counterparts, attitudes that reflect anti-Black racism (Gordon, 1995; Dumas &amp;amp; ross, 2016). The findings also reveal an assumption of science neutrality, lacking criticality in understanding science from broader epistemological foundations. Finally, the findings indicate that pragmatic concerns are prioritized over sociocultural and sociopolitical ones that may impact US racially minoritized doctoral students, resulting in international faculty failing to appreciate how their experiences of marginalization can result in empathic connections to their marginalized students. The implications implore STEM education to reimagine STEM doctoral education and mentoring as &quot;holistic and embedded in and accountable to cultural imperatives&quot; (Author, 2022). International faculty should become more aware of ways in which implicit bias fueled by anti-Black racism negatively impacts their Black and Brown doctoral mentees. STEM faculty development education should consider ways to assist international faculty with better connecting with racially minoritized and marginalized students to improve the cross-cultural doctoral mentoring experience.


AU  - Lisa Merriweather
AU  - Cathy Howell
AU  - Edith Gnanadass
CY  - New Orleans , Louisiana
DA  - 2023/02/26
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Discovering our "We": Marginalization as Connection between International STEM Faculty and their Black and Brown Doctoral Mentees
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/44789
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--44789
ER  -